Combat
This article just about summarizes everything that there is to know about combat. Keep in mind, however, that some details might be on the linked pages. Specifically, check also: * Combat/ToHitTable * Combat/DamageTables * Combat/Documenting * Template:Foe Melee and To-hit value This is by far the most common action in combat: attacking the enemy with the weapon you have equipped (or without weapons, if you're using Unarmed Combat). You can use 3 styles of attack: Defensive, Normal and Aggressive. In Defensive you deal less damage but receive less as well. Aggressive is the opposite. Normal is a intermediate situation. Based on the difference between your MR and your opponent's, you get a set difficulty (from 3+ to 18+). This difficulty shows what number you have to roll with a 20-sided die (d20) each round to hit your enemy and not receive damage. The higher the number you roll, the more damage you deal; the lower the number, the more damage you receive. Characters with a high Luck score reroll automatically the 1's and 2's, so you'll see you get less of them that it would be normal. See Talk for details. There are a few other Category:Ways to alter combat rolls Apart from this, many weapons (and even more enemies) have special attacks that will show up randomly. The frequency of these attacks is completely random and is not affected by your skills and stats (except maybe by Luck). The power of the special attacks depends on the weapon or enemy, and it's random between two fixed values. See Item Power, Magical Weapons, and Armour with Powers for additional information. For Special Attacks (from both Enemy & Item Power), it is unknown if your attack style (see second paragraph of this section) has any effect on the damage caused by it. It seems unlikely, but again, is unknown, and due to the nature of them, hard to research effectively. See Talk for a discussion on this. The fight goes on, round by round, until one of the sides runs out of SP. There are several enemies that can't be fought in Melee with normal (not magical) weapons, or with Unarmed Combat. See Unarmed Combat and Your weapon is ineffective against this enemy! for details. Temporary MR boosts During combat, there are several circumstances when your MR can go up for a single round (always up, never down): * Starting at level 30, Weaponry subskills and Unarmed Combat can randomly trigger a "critical" hit (not related to the number rolled), where you are supposed to strike more accurately than usual, improving your MR for that round. The improvement can be from as low as +1 MR at low skill levels to 100 and more at level 90 and above. See this table for details. * This boost is the main combat use of Shadow Magic. * Divination lowers your enemy's to-hit, which is indistinguishable of an increase in your MR. * Certain items, like the have powers that can affect your MR during combat. Since the minimum to-hit number is always 3+, these bonuses become less useful when your MR is high enough, and completely useless when your enemy is 3+ to hit from the start of the fight. Enemy special attacks Many enemies have a special attack that can trigger independently of the to-hit number. Some enemies have several different special attacks. Those special attacks trigger randomly during the battle, and may represent from a minor nuisance to their main danger. Almost all special attacks deal extra damage (this damage has its own range, and is independent of the to-hit number), but there are other effects like changing their MR (to another number or to equal your own), stunning you and preventing you from taking actions, and many more. The damage from special attacks depends only of the enemy, and range from the 1-3 SP hits from the murkmen to the highly dangerous 25-80 SP from flame breath. Special attacks are separate from main combat, so you deal or receive damage from your regular roll no matter if the special attack triggers or not. Weapons special attacks Many magical weapons have special attacks. They work the same as enemy attacks, but in your favor: they trigger randomly (some weapons trigger more often than others) and make either extra damage (the most common power) or another effect (healing you, instantly killing your enemy, stunning the enemy, etc). The weapon's special attack happens apart of the damage dealt/received from the regular roll. Range of damage depends on weapon. Some weapons also can have several different powers. Quickstone 20s If you possess a Quickstone (and have activated Quickstone 20s), you may use one or more stored 20s in combat. For more details see the Quickstone page. Battle Rage By consuming certain Tarlaro elixirs, you can acquire the Battle Rage condition. It improves slightly your probability of rolling a '20' in combat. There is also a chance that an adventurer who has entered into a Battle Rage will, after first rolling a '20' during combat, continue to roll '20s' during that same combat—until the rage has subsided. Fleeing from combat In most combats, specially the ones you get while randomly exploring the world, you can flee the combat if you don't want to fight (possible because it's a hard one). However, keep in mind that in some combats (specially in some scenarios, boss battles, etc) you won't have this option (you'll see the "Flee" option displayed in "strike through" format, like Flee). Sometimes you have to fight a certain number of rounds before you are allowed to flee ("Flee" option is greyed out and unclickable). Some rare enemies (most of them as a part of plot battles) will flee from you if you manage to inflict enough punishment upon them. Scaled Opponents Throughout the Kingdom of Tysa, you will find some situations (like Tallys's combat dummies, or the Axepath Cemetery undead) in which enemies have always the same to-hit number (for example, 11+) regardless of your MR. Those are called scaled enemies, and by extension, scaled battles and scaled scenarios. In those scenarios, some or all the enemies you'll find will have a fixed amount of SP, which won't change, and a variable MR, that varies with the purpose of presenting you with always the same difficulty. These enemies become easier to fight with time and experience, because your SP increases but theirs remain the same, so you can resist for more rounds of combat, withstand and deal more damage, and thus win more easily. One possible tactic when confronting these kinds of enemies and scenarios is to balance your gear so that it offers you the maximum possible amount of SP and NV, disregarding MR as irrelevant (because in this context it is). When applying this tactic, be careful for not-scaled enemies (like the Hall of Seven Ghouls in Axepath). Scaled opponent's to-hit is adjusted by weapons with specific bonus against a certain enemy type, like the Creyn Blade's bonus Vs Undead. For weapons with this ability, see the sub-categories of Category:Magical Weapons. There are enemies that do not have any such type-based vulnerability. Powers in Combat All powers can be used in combat, though some are more useful than others. To use a power, you must select it from the list and click one of the links Normal, Aggressive or Defensive (using Powers, the three are equal) like if you were going to do a normal attack. Using most powers in combat will increase the to-hit number by 1 (but it still can't go higher than 18). You must have enough NV to use the power. When using a power to attack, the damage caused is not related to the number you roll for that round, so even if you roll a 1 you can still inflict damage and kill the enemy (if it was an offensive power). However that works both ways - even if you roll a 20 your power may have a weak effect. The number you roll is still compared against enemy's difficulty to establish if you receive damage from their attack, so a high roll is still useful. That number is looked up in the Normal attack table (see below), regardless of what button you choose at the moment of using the power. Non-Lethal Combat In some combats you'll have the option (sometimes is the only one) to engage in non-lethal combat, or Subdue you enemy, instead of Killing it. When this is the case, usually the flavour text of the description of the battle changes to show you are not fighting to kill: "Irrikin casually swats at you with the flat of his blade", and all offensive powers will be disallowed with the message "You cannot use this power since you're not trying to kill your foe." This will not use a NV point, but will waste your turn, as if the power fizzled but you recovered. This doesn't apply to Powers that only affect you (Divination, Restoration, Fortification and Shadow Magic). To-hit numbers and table (see below) are the same in non-lethal combat as in Normal Combat. The Subduing combat, though, uses a different damage table than the normal combat (see below), in which the amounts of damage you can cause and receive are smaller, so the combat will usually be longer. You can't Quick-combat to Subdue. Also, in non-lethal engagements there is only one table for all combat styles: Aggressive, Normal and Defensive all work the same way. Items in combat You can use a very limited assortment of items while in combat, which doesn't include healing items like elixirs and herbs. It mostly comprises some very special weapons, your Quickstone once you have it, and the Blessings of Protection. Some combats may let you use some special items as well. The Blessing of Protection is a special item you can only buy from Cathedral of Silver Rain in Talinus, at a fixed price of 500 gold each. You can carry a maximum of three of them on any given moment. If used, it gives you a total protection from your enemy's attacks and powers for 2 or 3 rounds of combat (including the one you use it). The round you use a Blessing of Protection you get the following message: "You call upon your blessing of protection. You will be spared your opponent's wrath for the next X rounds.", where X can be 2 or 3. In all rounds you are covered by the Blessing you can attack and/or use Powers and Items the normal way, but your enemy's attack mesage shows: "Your enemy is unable to attack this round...". Count your rounds, because contrary to Powers, the Blessing will not announce the end of its effect. Include the round in which you used the Blessing in the count. After the fight What happens after the fight depends entirely on the location and adventure, but in general terms include: If you lose, normally you die, but some enemies can spare your life (not monsters, though). If it was a non-lethal combat, you never die. See Death for consequences of dying. If you flee from a combat, you don't recover any SP lost through it. If you win, you kill (or subdue) your enemy, receive some combat experience (see the combat note in How to earn XP), and recover some (around 50-75%) of the SP you lost in the battle. You can also receive some items and gold your enemy dropped (mostly random). In some plot battles, you can get items much more powerful and interesting. Category:Game Concepts